Form is empty - is it? - Online retreat
2024-11-29 19:00 - 2024-12-01 17:30 (Europe/London) | ONLINE
Online weekend retreat with The Buddhist Centre (Live)

Earlier this year we explored how the Buddha’s teaching in the Shorter Suññata Sutta establishes emptiness in a very direct and experiential way, by noticing absence. Experience is empty of whatever isn’t right here in experience now. This seems obvious, but we delude ourselves into thinking that although something isn’t ‘here’, it’s still ‘there’ in some way, even when we don’t experience it.

Say you’ve been somewhere away from home (even just out shopping) – where is that place in experience now? Quite simply, it’s nowhere, other than in our imagination. This is not suggesting that the place ‘doesn’t exist’, it’s about directly knowing the distinction between what is experienced and what is imagined or mentally constructed. Once we gain clarity around this, the liberating path of insight (prajñā) can unfold.

We’ll use the Buddha’s method to explore areas of our experience of bodily form, space and consciousness – gaining clarity about what is actual experience, what is imagined or constructed and what the emptiness teachings are actually pointing to.

Click here for the booking details

Dhyana Through the Body - residential retreat at Rivendell
2024-12-06 16:30 - 2024-12-13 10:00 | Rivendell, Chillies Lane, High Hurstwood, East Sussex, TN22 4AB, United Kingdom
Accessing dhyana (jhana), or absorption, seems to be very natural for some people, and a complete mystery to others. Dhyana is well worth cultivating as a way of deepening shamatha (mental tranquillity) as well as for the sheer psycho-somatic pleasure that some of these states afford. On this retreat, we’ll be suggesting approaches that people have found to be helpful and effective for entering into dhyana. This may well involve questioning both our own views and approaches, and some of what the tradition has to say about dhyana. We’ll proceed on the basis of asking ‘What, in our experience, is and is not actually helpful?’
We have found that by becoming alive to the immediacy of our sensate experience, particularly body experience, resources for entering absorption can be discovered as already present – just waiting to be noticed. We’ll explore this in direct experience by delving into the relation between body and breath and between body, awareness and insight.
This retreat is now fully booked but you can join the waiting list

Weekend Urban Retreat at Manchester Buddhist Centre
2024-12-14 10:30 - 2024-12-15 16:00 | Manchester Buddhist Centre, 16-20 Turner Street, MANCHESTER, M4 1DZ, United Kingdom
Flagging up these dates for my forthcoming December weekend workshop for Order members and mitras at the Manchester Buddhist Centre. I’ll share full details as soon as the theme is settled.
Both days will start at 10.30 am and finish at 4.00 pm. Booking is now available on the website link below.
Watch this space!
